Nuclear imaging, such as positron emission tomography (PET), generates scintillation pulses based on receipt of positrons at photo detectors during imaging. The scintillation pulses are resolved in respect to time of origin and energy. Each scintillation signal is processed in two ways: timing information is resolved by providing the scintillation signal to a comparator and an analog-to-digital converter ADC or a time-to-digital converter TDC for the timing pickoff, and energy is resolved by a pulse shaper and an ADC for the energy integration. In some embodiments, timing information is provided by a mixed timing pickoff filter (MTP filter) which converts a step function of the comparator to a ramp function.
Current nuclear imaging systems split the original scintillation signal into two branches, a timing branch and an energy branch. Each of the branches is transmitted to a signal processing system on individual signal processing channels. Each of the individual signal processing channels require all respective passive and active components (including ADCs, time-to-digital converters, connectors, etc.) to be duplicated between the individual signal processing channels. The necessity of dual hardware processing channels increases the cost of the devices.